The International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI) has said that Nigeria will continue to lose the needed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) unless it liberalises its real estate sector. FIABCI said that until the economy is liberalised and agencies of government made to complement one another in services delivery, the much desired Foreign Direct investment (FDI) into the sector will continue to elude the country.
FIABCI’s World President, Assen Makedonov, while speaking at FIABCI International conference in Lagos recently on the theme, “Ease of Doing Business: Attracting real fund into our real estate and the importance of the property scorecard”, said he may not come to the country if he was an investor because of the stress he went through getting into the country. One of such experience, he noted, was getting Visa.
He urged the government to liberalise VISA processing, approval and ensure that relevant agencies work together to achieve the ‘ease of doing business’ rather than act in ways that do not encourage trade. He recalled his experience in coming to the country from Bulgaria last week as unpalatable
According to Makedonov, no genuine investor will go through the bureaucracy, the odious task of getting visa, the unnecessary questioning and delays from the Nigerian Embassy and would not look for an alternative country to invest his funds.
Last year, he said, the city of Barcelona welcomed over 81 million tourists and wondered if the case would not have been different if the tourists had encountered any encumbrance in the process of entering Spain. He added that any country ready for business and FDI is known by how easy and pleasurable it is for visitors to enter it. He encouraged less of human interface with government agencies assigned with the responsibility of approving land titles, permits and others in real estate sector, noting that except that is done the growth of the sector will still be hindered.
FIABCI, he said, is in the country to focus on all the factors that enable and enhance real estate development, arguing that any country that does not take real estate sector development serious will have stunted growth.